frenetic
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 23, 2026 is:
frenetic • \frih-NET-ik\ • adjective
Something described as frenetic is filled with excitement, activity, or confusion. The word is a synonym of frantic.
// The event was noisy and frenetic, which prompted us to leave early.
Examples:
“As Marty Mauser, a wannabe table tennis champion who dreams and deceives his way through his shamble of a life ... [Timothée Chalamet] injects his scenes with enough nervous energy to fuel a plane. Nowhere will you see a performance more frenetic or impressive.” — Ralph Jones, Vanity Fair, 9 Feb. 2026
Did you know?
In modern use, frenetic can describe a focused and intense effort to meet a deadline, or dancing among a hyped-up crowd, but the word’s Middle English predecessor, frenetik, had a narrower use: it was used to describe those exhibiting a severely disordered state of mind. If you trace frenetic back far enough, you’ll find that it comes from Greek phrenîtis, a term referring to an inflammation of the brain. As for frenzied and frantic, they’re not only synonyms of frenetic but relatives as well. Frantic comes from frenetik, and frenzied traces back to phrenîtis.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day podcast for March 22nd. |
| 0:10.0 | Today's word is Apotheosis, spelled A-P-O-T-H-E-O-S-I-S. |
| 0:19.0 | Apotheosis is a noun. It refers to the perfect form or example of something, or to the highest or best part of something. It can also mean elevation to divine status, deification. It's usually singular, but the plural form is apotheoses, spelled within ES. |
| 0:39.4 | Here's the word used in a sentence from lithub.com. |
| 0:43.5 | At its simplest level, Canada appears in American literature as a wilderness escape from a more urbanized United States. |
| 0:53.1 | The apotheosis of this view of Canada as a wilderness getaway |
| 0:56.8 | might be Sylvia Plath's poem, Two Campers in Cloud Country, |
| 1:01.8 | subtitled Rock Lake, Canada, |
| 1:03.9 | and written about a camping trip she and her husband Ted Hughes took |
| 1:07.7 | through Canada and the Northeastern U.S. in 1959. |
| 1:12.8 | Among the ancient Greeks, it was sometimes thought fitting to grant someone God status. |
| 1:19.7 | Hence the word apotheosis, from the verb Apotheo, or Apotheon, meaning to deify. |
| 1:27.0 | All are rooted in the Greek word, Theos, meaning God, |
| 1:30.5 | which we can also thank for such religion-related terms as theology and atheism. |
| 1:36.5 | There's not a lot of literal apotheosizing to be had in modern English, |
| 1:41.9 | but Apotheosis is thriving in the 21st century. It can refer to the highest |
| 1:47.0 | or best part of something, as in the celebration reaches its apotheosis in an elaborate feast, |
| 1:53.6 | or to a perfect example or ultimate form, as in a movie that is the apotheosis of the |
| 1:59.8 | sci-fi genre. |
| 2:03.2 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. |
| 2:12.9 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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